Sacramento daily record-union., 1887-08-06
ABOUT BRAIN WORK.
ESSENTIALS FOR IT., DEVELOP.
MENT AND HEALTH.
Indications of Overwork and tie
Stages of Prostration and Dis
ease Producing Insanity

indications of Overwork and tie
Stages of Prostration and Dis
ease Producing Insanity.
In very sensible article upon this sub
Ject the Lancet says:
There is such thing as mindstrength-
eIing work. In truth, il is, as every phys
loiogist knows, that only by work that
minds, or more correctly speaking brains,
can be strengthened in their growth and
naturally developed. The exercise of those
centers OF the nervous system with whose
function what We call consciousness and
| intellect are associated, is us essential TO
their nutrition as activity is to the healthy
growth OF any other part of the organism,
whether nervous or muscular. Every part
OF the living body is developed and enjoys
vitality by the law which makes the ap-
preparation of food dependent upon and
commensurate with the amount of work it
does. 1t feeds in proportion as it works,
as truly as it works in proportion as it
feeds. This canon of organic life is the
foundation of those estimates which phvs-
value of food in measures of weight-lift-
ing power. 1t is, however, necessary to
recognize, that although these propositions
are true in the abstract, they need the in
PRODUCTION of 4 new integer or combining
power before any sum OF results can be
worked out
We know that food is practically Just as
truly outside the body after it has been
eaten, digested, and even taken into the
blood current, as it is when it lies on the
table. Nutrition is tissue function, and
its performance depends on the appetite
and feeding power-which is something
different from the organic aeed-of the It's
sue with which the nutrient fluid is
brought into contact. Again, any particu-
lar part of the organism may be so ex-
hausted by work that ii has not power
enough left to feed 1t is a matter of the
highest practical moment that this fact
should be recognized. There is undoubt-
edly point at which work ceases to be
strengthening and becomes exhausted
self-exhausting and self-destructive 30 far
as the particular issue in activity is con-
cerned
Work may be carried too far in fact to
such a point that not only the last reserve
of power for action, but the ultimate unit,
80 to say, of the force OF nutrition, which
is, as We now believe identical with the
force OF general activity, may be expended
IN work, and the organism left so utterly
powerless that ITS exhausted tissues can no
longer appropriate the food supplied or
placed within their normal reach. We
have said that it is necessary that this
should be understood Il has a special
bearing on the question of brainwork in
childhood and adolescence.
Just as extreme weakness and faintness
Of the body as whole produce restless
ness and loss of control, so extreme ex-
haustion of the brain produces mental
agitation and loss OF healthy self-con-
sciousness- This is how and why the
" overworked" become deranged. One Of
the earliest indications, or symptoms, of
brain exhaustion is irrita5ility; then
comes sleeplessness of the sort which
seems to consist in inability to cease think
ing either of a particular subject or things
IN general; next, the mental unrestful or
uncomfortable thought gets the better of
the will, even during the ordinary hours of
wakefulness and activity, which is step
further toward the verge of insanity than
the mere persistence of thought at the
hour of sleep-this way lies madness; and,
finally, the thinking faculty, or, as we say,
the imagination gets the betterof the will
and asserts supremacy for its phantoms,
those of sight or hearing being the most
turbulent and dominant which happen to
be most commonly used in intellectual
work, and therefore most developed by the
individual cerebrum-this is madness.
Such is the story of overwork of the brain
or mind and it is easy to see that at any
stage of the progress from bad to worse
the will may be overpowered, and the
Judgment perverted, in such manner as to
impel the victim of this mind trouble to
seek refuge in death, or TO so disorder his
consciousness that ne supposes himself to
be acting III obedience to some Just and
worthy behest when he commits an act of
self-destruction or does something in the
doing of which he accidentally dies Such,
IN the main, is the story Of suicide from
overwork.
What, then, can be the excuse pleadable
by those who heap on the brains of the
young or adolescent such burdens of mind
labor and worry as exhaust their very
faculties of self-help and leave them
prey to the vagaries of starved brain?
We pity the suffering of those shipwrecked
sailors who, after exposure in an open
boat, perhaps without food, for hours or
days, go mad" and, raying of feast and
pleasures the antitheses Of their actual ex-
perience, fall ON each other or throw
themselves overheard. Have we no pity
for brains dying of lack of food because
We have compelled them to expend their
very last unit of force in work, and now
they are distraught in the act of dying
1t may be sublime ideal, that of a
highly educated people; but if it should
happen that the realization of this beaut-
ful dream of our philosophic reformers
can only be achieved by the slaughter of
the weak, it will scarcely console the ma
tional conscience to reflect that, after all,
" the survival Of the fittest is the law of
nature.